Fort Collins mayoral candidates stake out positions

By Saja Hindi For the Reporter-Herald

Posted:
03/24/2013 11:44:44 AM MDT

For incumbent mayoral candidate Karen Weitkunat, the April 2 municipal election is about continuing the work she started during her first term. But for opponent Eric Sutherland, it's about doing the opposite -- taking the city of Fort Collins in a new direction.

Weitkunat is finishing a two-year term as mayor and previously served on the City Council for eight years. She was also a member of the city's Planning and Zoning Board for four years. Weitkunat says the first time she ran for mayor was because of her desire to help businesses, because of her background.

"I saw a need and the desire to help business in Fort Collins. I carry a very strong community perspective and a business perspective, and that's beneficial on a council, which is composed of six different districts within the city, representing six different areas, whereas the mayor is a universal look at the community," she said.

And this time, she said, it's about continuation.

"We planted the seeds, and now we're in the blossoming stage," Weitkunat said.

Sutherland is more of a newcomer though not unfamiliar to the city government scene during the past six years. He's been attending City Council meetings and serves on the Platte River Power Authority board of directors.

"I'm just looking for an opportunity to exercise my philosophy of government, which is: We do it to help each other, period.

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If you're not in public service to help your neighbors, you're in the wrong business," Sutherland said. "And honestly, we've had some pretty bad examples of people helping themselves and not abiding by my philosophy."

Sutherland said his interest in affecting local government began when he learned of what he says were bad decisions in regard to energy and sustainability from wasting money on renewable energy credits to plans with the Platte River Power Authority.

"We're lucky in Loveland and Fort Collins to have public power. It's one of the greatest assets that our community really has, and I was disappointed to find out that we have abandoned the model we had started out with of building out of small wind farms and doing it all as voluntary contributions," he said.

Sutherland's work experience is in energy and engineering, and he said energy is one issue he believes is tied to all others in Fort Collins. In addition to making greater investments in renewable energy and improving system performance and efficiency, he thinks some standardization is lacking.

"I'd like the PRP cities to harmonize their standards for distributed energy generation and rates. A lot of improvements we can make are simply going to be made by having all four cities work together on their retail side, so that everybody's doing the same things, doing their best practices together," Sutherland said.

The main issue that pushed Sutherland to run, aside from Kelly Ohlson's decision not to run for mayor, is what Sutherland said is an "absolute, absolute corruption of public finance represented by the Rocky Mountain Innosphere," where he says the city violated a charter by using tax money for the company's 30,000-square-

foot building.

"Some people accuse me of being a little bit too focused on that. It's just what I'm working on right now ... I'm still working on other projects, but this one ... as long as I'm living in this town, we won't have that corruption," he said.

Weitkunat, however, finds another issue at the top of her list for Fort Collins. "The major issue will be water -- the danger of the fire affecting our watershed, the drought conditions. We have been planning, but it's really a push now to make sure that we can secure our water," Weitkunat said.

The main source for Fort Collins is Halligan's reservoir and its expansion, she said, so the plan is to continue being part of the discussions with the Army Corps of Engineers.